Auckland War Memorial Museum likely to stay closed for at least one more week, losing around $19,000 a day
Auckland War Memorial Museum was forced to close after asbestos was discovered.
Photo:
123RF
Auckland War Memorial Museum says it is likely to stay closed for at least another week.
It has been almost two weeks since asbestos was discovered at the museum, forcing it closed.
A spokesperson for Fire and Emergency said it received the museum's revised fire evacuation scheme on Wednesday and had approved it on Thursday morning.
But the museum's chief executive, David Reeves, said that was just one of the two issues that needed resolving before it could reopen.
"The other one is the full cleaning and approval by WorkSafe for as much of the building as we can in order to open safely," he said.
"That will likely be another week, it may even be longer. It just depends on what our licensed asbestos removalist firm advises, but we're working as quickly as we can."
That would make at least three weeks without visitors or donations.
"It's around $19,000 a day [in lost revenue], and that's made up of a whole range of things we're not able to earn by way of ticket sales, carparks, retail, venue hire, and incidental donations from members of the public," Reeves explained.
"It would be [worrying] if it was for much longer, but we have a really strong balance sheet and we are able to sustain this - $19,000 a day isn't insignificant, but for a short period we are able to readjust other expenditure."
But he assured that staff were continuing to work and being paid in full.
"We've got an off-site office in Newmarket and also lots of people are able to work from home. There is absolutely plenty of work for people to do and we're all fully employed," he said.
"We do have some casual staff and we have paid them for the shifts they were already rostered onto, but obviously forward rosters are affected for them, but we are hoping to get back up and running really as quickly as possible."
Members of the public who had paid for an annual membership would also be compensated, Reeves said.
"We've automatically extended everybody's membership renewal date by one month, and if we end up being closed for longer than that we'll look at that again."
More to come...
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